CanadaGAP food safety certification

At Streef Produce, we are proud to have been among the first fruit and vegetable growers in Ontario to be CanadaGAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certified.

CanadaGAP is a food safety program for companies that grow and/or handle fruits and vegetables, and is officially recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative.

Achieving certification involves keeping detailed records of processes and procedures and undergoing a yearly audit by a certified, third-party auditor who reviews your records and visits your business to help identify any areas that might need improvement.

Being CanadaGAP certified is part of our commitment to you that we take food safety seriously and are working hard to provide safe, quality produce – day in, and day out.

Traceability systems

All of our produce is identified with a lot number so that we know exactly where it came from and when. This means we can trace anything we sell right back to farm or field of origin. Traceability also lets us keep detailed records on how much and what fertilizers and crop protection products were used on a specific field and when.

QR codes on our bagged beans let you use your smart phone to find out more about where that product came from.

Specialized potato storage

We have built a specialized storage for our potatoes on our farm where we can store up to 12 million potatoes in a climate-controlled environment. This means we can bring our potatoes to market when the market is ready for them and provide our customers with locally grown spuds almost the entire year. Our potato storage facility is double-walled – both for ventilation to keep the potatoes from spoiling and for building support – and was built by hand by Ontario Amish craftsmen.

When our potatoes are ready to go to market, we wash them and an electronic sizing machine sorts and grades them according to size. The wash water is naturally recycled through our pond and returns clean back into the environment through the municipal drainage ditch on our farm.

Specialized produce cooler

When produce is ready for harvest, it has to be picked and cooled as soon as possible to maintain the best quality. The sooner our vegetables are cooled after harvest, the longer they’ll last on the store shelf. Our new specialized forced air cooler lets us cool produce down to the needed temperature in only one hour instead of four hours in a regular cooler. This is just another innovation we’ve invested in to ensure our customers consistently receive top quality products.